SubUrbia
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: February 7, 1997 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
Mr. Bogosian's venomously funny play, which he adapted himself for the screen, is given warmth and generosity by Mr. Linklater, whose elegantly fluid direction and great skill with actors are accentuated by the play's spareness. Read full review
90
SlateSarah Kerr
The talk sounds a little canned – an adult's foggy reconstruction of what it was like to hang out – but, for a while, Linklater is able to extract odd momentary glances and giggles from the actors to freshen it up. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The fierce and funny film version has been directed by Texan Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise) with rare grace and compassion. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie is dark, intense and disturbing. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Nevertheless, the cast of mainly unknowns is so good, and Linklater is so adept at playing them off one another, that the two-hour running time never seems overextended. Read full review
80
VarietyGodfrey Cheshire
Writer-director teamings seldom mesh as smoothly or suggest so many creative affinities as does the one at the heart of subUrbia, a brooding, incisive comedy that blends the talents of helmer Richard Linklater and playwright Eric Bogosian. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Stack
SubUrbia is depressing comedy -- the more so because director Richard Linklater's satirical picture of youthful alienation rings painfully true. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Driven by Bogosian's finger-snapping dialogue and theatrical structure, subUrbia doesn't allow for much pleasurably Linklaterish lounging; each character has got some serious orating to do before the night is over. Read full review
70
SalonScott Rosenberg
Linklater gets great performances from his young cast, and you'll find yourself thinking about the characters and their travails well after the movie's finish. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Linklater's (and Bogosian's) running commentary on disaffected suburban youth is that it doesn't bore you half as much as it should. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
SubUrbia is about 95% dialogue, some of which is clever, but much of which is pointless. Read full review
60
Dallas ObserverPeter Rainer
What's weird about subUrbia is that Linklater's zoned-out technique is wedded to Bogosian's in-your-face power-rant oratory. The result is like local anesthesia--you can see the incisions, but you can't feel them. Read full review
60
EmpireTrevor Lewis
It has a tendency to drift aimlessly and, having said all there is to say on the subject long before the two hours are up, loiters around when it really ought to have gone to bed. Read full review
50
San Francisco ExaminerBarry Walters
Then there are times when the humor and the pathos of these losers catch you off-guard. Those moments are nearly profound, and elevate the film above the slacker cliches in which it wallows. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The picture often rambles as aimlessly as its characters, but its vivid depiction of alienation and self-destructiveness among suburban youth has much cautionary value. Read full review
50
Washington PostRita Kempley
Linklater, who introduced the blithe, but bemused slacker subculture to America in 1991, gets bogged down not only in Bogosian's for-stage structure, but especially his middle-aged perspective. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJack Mathews
With each succeeding picture, Linklater seemed to grow as a filmmaker, just as his characters became more defined and developed. But with his fourth picture, subUrbia, he takes two giant steps backward. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
This adaptation of Eric Bogosian's 1994 play-- which revolves around several post-high-school drifters hanging around a convenience store while awaiting the return of their rock-star classmate -- doesn't hold up to Linklater's previous work, and the problem is Bogosian's script. Read full review
40
NewsweekJack Kroll
Onstage, trapped in the mini-wasteland of the parking lot, the creeped-out kids crackled like lightning in a bottle. Linklater's meager attempts to open up the movie drain its energy. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
A long, dark night o' slacker despair, courtesy of Richard Linklater and self-important blowhard Eric Bogosian. Read full review
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